Valhalla Primary School’s Tinned Food initiative ended recently, but will have a lasting impact.
The initiative was started by teacher Roxanne Josias and driven by prefects at the school.
“One of the core values that we try to instil in our children is the ‘we care’ value. We want them to grow up and be productive members in society and be in a position to uplift the communities that they come from. At times we do not realise how fortunate we are because we take things for granted. It’s easy for us to identify the things that we do not have instead of counting the blessings that we do have,” says Josias.
She says the Valhalla Primary School family really opened their hearts.
“After our first two weeks, we reached 1 000 tins of food. It gave me goosebumps and the children lit up. The principal came from his office to find out what the noise and fuss was about.
“It was the moment we realised how far we had come. This number surpassed our expectations by far. We were actually expecting to collect 500 tins but we ended up collecting a grand total of 1 653 tins which included fish oil, spaghetti and spices,” says Josias.
The school decided to broaden the initiative.
“We decided to donate a package to one family in each class. On our doorstep (just a short distance from our entrance) we have families living in an informal structure; we donated food to them. Some of these people are ex-pupils of our school. In the broader community we visited Elim Night Shelter to deliver the donation. This was an amazing experience.
“The prefects along with myself and Daniels carried this project. Therefore it was important for me that the prefects went along to deliver the donation. They needed to see where their hard work was going to. We were met by two amazing people at the Shafeek Ortel and the social worker. Unbeknown to us, before we arrived their pantry was running relatively low and once the manager saw the donation he was blown away and the overwhelming gratitude was evident.
“The shelter manager became emotional and stopped all activity, offloading of products, to take us to the pantry so that we could understand his emotional response. We were taken on a tour of their facilities and met some of the people who live there and some who work there. The children reported back that they got emotional to see things like the Wall of Remembrance which they have in honor of those who are no longer around. They were surprised by the facilities that Elim Night Shelter had, the beautiful garden, the thrift shop they operate, the gym and the positive spirit that all people had. It has changed our view of what a night shelter is and what it can do and mean for one person,” says Josias.
